


The Drive From Town

by demonbarber14



Category: Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-19 00:09:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2367032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonbarber14/pseuds/demonbarber14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>C.W. Moss and Blanche Barrow drive back to the latest "nice little flat" their share with their partners in crime and talk a bit along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Drive From Town

“C.W.?”

“Yeah?”

“Why’d you want to join up with Bonnie and Clyde?”

“I dunno. Seemed like fun, I guess.”

“Oh.”

They drove in silence a while longer. Blanche took out a cigarette, her second since they’d gotten in the car.

“You ever feel like going back home?”

C.W. laughed. “Naw. I think about it sometimes, an’ how impressed everyone’d be that I’m part of the Barrow gang an’ and all, but I don’t wanna go back for good or anything.”

“You don’t miss your parents?” Blanche rolled down the window once the cigarette smoke made the interior too stifling.

“Naw. It’s just-it’s just me an’ my daddy. I don’t miss him much. I don’t think he misses me none either.”

“Have you got a girl back home? I’m sure she’d miss you”

“Yeah. I got a couple girls” he answered with a grin.

“Oh, have you?” she smiled, not believing a word of it

He grinned back at her, taking advantage of her rare good mood. “Yeah.”

Blanche turned toward the window, exhaling a puff of cigarette smoke into the atmosphere.

“What about you? I mean, you don’t seem to like Bonnie much, but you still came with us.”

“Yeah, well I had some romantic ideas about following Buck anywhere and I didn’t know it’d be so--”

“Dangerous?”

“Uncomfortable.”

“‘Least you don’t have to sleep on a chair.”

“Hey, that’s true. With all the money they’re stealing, how come they can’t get you a room of your own?”

“I dunno. I don’ mind it, though, ‘cept when they fight.”

Blanche’s curiosity was aroused. She often found herself pulled between feelings of disdain for and fascination with the couple. “What do they fight about? Me, I expect”

“Yeah, sometimes.” Blanche smiled. He really was too dumb to be anything but honest. “an’ sometimes they fight about Clyde’s…um…problem”

“Really?” Blanche sat up, eager to hear about any issue of theirs. “What’s Clyde’s problem?”

“Oh, you know” C.W. rubbed the back of his neck “Clyde—he can’t—he just can’t do it. You know?”

Blanche burst out laughing. “You mean it? So, Bonnie an’ Clyde, they never…”

“Don’t see how they could.”

“Well, no wonder Clyde’s so good to her; he has to make it up to her somehow, I guess. How does she put up with him not bein’ able to?”

He shrugged. “She just keeps tryin’”

“She ever flirted with you?”

“A couple of times, yeah.” In an unusually perceptive moment, he saw a hint of _something_ cross Blanche’s features and guessed its meaning correctly. “I never went with her though”

“Good. You don’t ever let yourself get mixed up with a woman like that, hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

 “Crazy little punk.”

She ruffled his curly blond hair and stubbed out her cigarette. She told herself it would be the last of the day, but changed her mind when she realized they were nearing the hotel. She wondered how much longer her nerves could stand it, thinking that every dingy cabin they stayed in would be the last place she ever saw. She wondered how long she would have to stand it, who would cave in first and decide to quit, what would happen if no one did. She closed her eyes, unwilling to acknowledge the thought that bubbled just beneath the surface of her consciousness. _What if the laws came while we were gone and they’re all dead?_ She always shielded herself from the thought, on account of superstition. That wasn’t the only reason, though, and she knew it. She had realized a while before that without Bonnie, and Clyde, and hell, even Buck, she would never have to live in her current state of abject terror again. She could go home. Sure, she might get questioned, but no one would disbelieve it if she said that she’d been forced to join the gang. And even a jail sentence wouldn’t be the end of the world. It would even give her a chance to stay put for a change.

_No_. She couldn’t let her husband die without her, even if it meant she’d have to share a funeral with Bonnie. She would stop taking trips to town with C.W. every opportunity she got, on the off-chance that they would come back to find the others dead.

She felt tears starting to push through, and let them fall down her cheeks, not wanting to draw attention to them by wiping them away. She jerked her head up when she felt the car pull over to the side of the road.

“You want to split a chocolate bar?”

She tried to laugh, but it just made the tears flow all the faster. “Sure. I-I’d love to.” 

C.W. rummaged through the grocery bags in the back until he found the desired article. He broke the candy bar in half, keeping the bigger one for himself and scarfing it in one bite. Blanche tried to eat, but realized she was too nervous.

“You okay?”

Before she could think of an appropriate answer, the phrase she had repeated to herself over and over popped out of her mouth. “I don’t want to die.”

“We ain’t gonna die.”

She was about to contradict him, point out that their luck was going to run out eventually, when he kissed her.

He wasn’t inexperienced, that was for sure. It wasn’t a shy little peck, nor was it a clinging, sloppy, wet kiss. Instead, it felt—she hated to admit it, but it felt perfect. His lips were warm and strong against hers as she felt him embrace her. As the kiss deepened, he casually let his hands wander along the contours of her body. She allowed herself a few moments of his touching her before she broke the kiss off and gently pushed him away.

 “You want me to do it again?” The combination of his shyly tilted head and flirtatious little smile very nearly made her say yes. She couldn’t pretend she wasn’t flattered. C.W. wasn’t exactly beautiful, but his sweet round face had a definite appeal and he did have an oddball charm, which was in equal parts annoying and adorable. Aside from anything else, he _liked_ her. When she alienated herself from everyone else, he always let her drive to town with him, talk to him, sit and read movie magazines with him. She thought that one more tiny kiss couldn’t hurt, and even if they—

 She knew she couldn’t, though. She didn’t care how many girls he had been with, it would still feel as though she were corrupting him. He was the one pure thing they had with them; the only person in their gang who wasn’t greedy, or ever mean-spirited. Blanche didn’t want his role to shift, or their dynamic as a group to get any more complicated. She just _couldn’t_. 

She shook her head, afraid that anything she said would offend him.

“Okay.” He started the car once more. “Hey, you gonna finish the candy bar?”

 

 

The End


End file.
